It was a beautiful Maine morning. I padded around the deck, taking the covers off the furniture. I removed the bungee cord that held the table umbrella in place and carefully looped it around a deck railing. Then I hooked the ends together. I rolled up the umbrella.
Time for a second cup of coffee.
How different my mornings are when I am on vacation.
As a school librarian, I get eight weeks off in the summer. (And I’m grateful for every single day.) But on only one of those weeks do I truly get to relax. That’s when my husband, Paul, and I spend a week in a rental cottage on Penobscot Bay.
We do day trips throughout the summer. Time spent picnicking or just reading on the shores of a lake is restful. We try to get in daily walks on a local riverside rail trail.
But I have whole days that are taken up with errands and tasks. One reason is that I postpone certain activities (especially medical appointments) until summer, because the school year is so busy.
It seemed like it took me several days to get organized enough just to get away. Beforehand, we needed to meet with the friend who takes care of two of our cats and our chickens. The other two cats, who require daily medication, had to be boarded. There was the packing, not just for ourselves but for the two dogs, who travel with us. We had to get the house and gardens in order before we left.
This year, we are also having some work done on the house. I always forget how much time that takes up, even though I’m not doing the work myself. We are having two sides of our Victorian house painted. This will end up taking about a month. A complication is that we have a 13 and a half year old dog who has a laryngeal condition. Quinn can’t get overexcited. But he still loves to try to bark, and, of course, a house painter on the premises is just the kind of thing to get a dog going.
Paul and I have had to stay close to home during the painting, to make sure Quinn is OK.
We also need to have the furnace replaced. But first, the chimney needs to be lined. More workmen will be coming and going. More commotion.
I have been working on a huge cleaning project since early spring. When I find I have some free time, I feel like I should be sorting through papers, weeding out old magazines, tossing unwanted clothes.
So it was a relief to enter the pristine vacation cottage a few weeks ago. I had not brought my own house along, like a turtle. I had packed quite lightly, in fact. I had no appointments scheduled, no meetings to attend. The master bedroom closet was completely empty, except for a spare blanket. It did not stare at me accusingly, daring me to clean it.
My morning routine during the school year is chaotic. I first feed the dogs and cats, giving the female cats their medications at the same time. I wolf down a bowl of granola, give Quinn his pill, then take my myriad vitamins. I often feel like a whirling dervish, trying to keep Martha from harassing the cats while they’re chowing down, and stopping Quinn from drinking a gallon of water right after he eats.
With just the dogs to focus on, my mornings at the cottage were immediately more relaxed. After breakfast, there was time to enjoy coffee and watch the morning news. Then I took out my kayak. A shower, lunch for the dogs, and then out went Paul and I—for lunch, walks, shopping.
Once we were back “at home,” there was time to take a nap and do some reading before dinner. Time to sit out on the deck. A schooner came into the bay one day. An eagle passed overhead several times. There was time for strolling along the rocky beach.
When I went out in my kayak the first day, I noticed a school of fish jumping out of the water. They just skimmed the surface, so I couldn’t get a good look at them. I could see their fins just above the water at times. And once I saw the school pass underwater, quite near my kayak.
The next few days, a few fishermen set up nets to catch the fish, which I believe were menhaden, also known as pogies. We could see, from the deck, one of the menhaden fishermen sell his catch to a lobsterman.
But on the Friday of that week, no human was out on our section of the bay except me. I saw no fewer than six schools.
I sat in the middle of several of them, transfixed by the jumping and splashing. There were anywhere from 15 to 20 fish—it was impossible to count. I took videos with my phone. It was an amazing experience.
The videos will be a solace to me in the winter, when I am tired and frazzled and just plain worn out. But I will have to promise to give myself the gift of time to watch them.
No comments:
Post a Comment